1.1 All liturgy is
local. Such might have been the phrase coined by the late Thomas
Tip ONeill, congressman from Massachusetts, had he
spent his time investigating the musical and ritual practices of the
Lutheran church during the first 250 years of its existence, rather
than serving in Congress (as unlikely a proposition as that might seem).
For what scholars who embark on studies of music and liturgy in the
Lutheran church from the Reformation until ca.1780 soon discover is
that what holds true for one church does not necessarily obtain for
another in the same town, or in the next city or neighboring region.
This liturgical variety represents one of the most fascinating aspects
of Lutheran history, but can also be one of the most frustrating, for
the differences that existed make it very difficult to generalize about
liturgical and musical practices in the Lutheran church between ca.1520
and ca.1780. Thus any author who attempts to look at Lutheran liturgy
and music in this period of history faces a very daunting prospect,
one made even more complex by the lacunae in the surviving records.
Those documents that provide the most detail concerning the liturgical
practices of a specific church at a particular time—descriptive
orders of worship—are extraordinarily few in number. Other more
prescriptive documents, the so-called church orders, present
their own problems, particularly when one attempts to determine their
temporal and geographic validity.

1.2 An example from Saxony
will help to reveal the complexity of this situation. From 1539 until
well into the eighteenth century, the Agenda of Duke Heinrich
remained the official liturgical formulary for electoral Saxony (which
included Dresden and Leipzig), and was reprinted many times virtually
unchanged during that period.1
In the order of worship that it establishes for the Sunday morning service
in cities and towns with Latin schools, the liturgy, which was to be
sung by a choir of schoolboys,2
included very few hymns, and did not yet include any extra-liturgical
figural compositions, such as motets. Whether the items of the Ordinary
and Proper were sung as chant or polyphony is not indicated. Over the
next two hundred years, however, liturgical records from various Saxon
courts and cities reveal that additional congregational hymns, polyphonic
settings of the Ordinary, extra-liturgical sacred art music, and organ
music all had gained a permanent presence in liturgies in Saxony; perhaps
the richest example is the liturgies as celebrated in Bachs Leipzig.
The liturgical forms in the Agenda, however, were never updated
to reflect any of these musical accretions. As a result, despite its
official status, the Agenda today yields a false picture of musico-liturgical
practices in Saxony in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and
must be supplemented with contemporary, local sources.

1.3 Despite the fact that
prescriptive records such as these may deviate widely from actual practice,
however, they have remained one of the main sources of information on
historic Lutheran liturgies, due to their general availability. This
has led to misinformation and inaccurate assumptions, both of which
Joseph Herl attempts to treat in this book. And despite the obstacles
placed in his way by the vicissitudes of history, he succeeds admirably
on a number of fronts.

1.4 Herl intends to discredit
the long-held notion that all Lutheran congregations sang with
full heart and voice from the time of the Reformation, and that
the Lutheran liturgy was congregational (by which he means
that most if not all of the elements of the liturgy were sung by the
congregation) from the start, as it is today.3 In order to demonstrate his primary thesis
that congregational singing developed slowly, he employs a methodology
that differs from that of earlier scholars, who relied exclusively on
the type of prescriptive liturgical records mentioned above, as well
as on problematic (in Herls view) readings of Luthers early
liturgies and his statements about music in the liturgy. Herl studies
the prescriptive records in some detail, but also makes use of descriptive
records, particularly those that resulted from church visitations. The
latter yield plentiful evidence for his primary thesis, at least as
it pertains to small-town and village churches. Far less convincing,
however, are his contentions that the liturgy had become congregational
by the mid-eighteenth century, and that the growth of congregational
singing produced a competition for liturgical space between
choir and congregation—the worship wars of the title.

2.
Luther and the Liturgy in Wittenberg

2.1 Herl opens his study
with a discussion of the various liturgies formulated by Luther in the
1520s. These, together with a few others, formed the basis for Lutheran
liturgical practice for the next 250 years. In his 1523 writing, Von
Ordenung Gottis Diensts ynn der Gemeyne (Order of the Divine
Service in the Congregation), Luther presented his concerns about
the abuses of the Mass. In his view, the Word of God had
been silenced, fables and lies abounded in the histories
of saints and in songs and sermons, and the people had begun to understand
their attendance at Mass as a work promising Gods grace and salvation.
In the process, faith had been lost. In this essay, Luther did not provide
an actual order of worship, but instead provided an overview of the
services that he felt should be celebrated, and what their general content
should be. Herl disagrees with Robin Leaver that the services described
here were intended to be sung by the congregation, and feels they were
more likely still the province of the choir.4
In Luthers next contribution on the liturgy, the Formulae Missae
et Communionis offered in the same year, he provided a full order
of worship, to be sung entirely in Latin by the choir; he did, however,
add a paragraph in the extended explanatory remarks that accompany the
liturgy in which he stated a desire for vernacular songs for the people
to sing at several liturgical junctures. He also expressed a desire
for German songs that could be sung in alternation with those in Latin,
so that eventually the liturgy could once again be sung by the people,
as it once had been, but now in German. As Herl shows in his tables
in Appendix 4, this practice of the dual presentation of liturgical
items (first in Latin by the choir, then in German by the people), particularly
the Kyrie, Gloria, and Credo, became quite widespread.

2.2 Three years later, in
1526, Luther offered his Deudsche Messe und Ordnung Gottis Diensts,
which again included a complete order of worship, but now entirely in
the vernacular. The statements that accompanied this service underscore
Luthers non-insistence on liturgical uniformity, another hallmark
of Lutheran liturgical history. Here Herl challenges the received tradition
that this German Mass represented the paradigm of the congregational
liturgy, with the people singing all the parts that had formerly been
the province of the choir (9). As he points out, Luther only specified
that the entire church should sing the German Creed after
the Gospel, and otherwise did not specify who was to sing the various
elements of the liturgy—whether congregation or choir. Herl concludes
that the pre-Reformation traditions, with the choir singing the majority
of items, probably continued at first. He also questions whether
it was actually Luthers intention that the people should eventually
learn to sing the entire mass in German (9), and points out that
Luther had an apparent change of heart on this issue: in 1523, as mentioned
above, he had indicated that he hoped that the congregation would eventually
sing the entire Mass in German; five years later, however, he wrote
that he did not intend to abolish the Latin Mass, and would not have
allowed the vernacular unless compelled to (10). In 1528,
as Herl states, [Luther] was content simply to allow certain
vernacular songs to be inserted into the traditional mass
(11). Thus the Reformers views on the institution of a congregational
liturgy remain unclear. Yet throughout the book, Herl seems to
take this idea of the congregational liturgy as a central
desideratum of the new church, the pursuit of which caused the slow
but inevitable eradication of the choral liturgy.

2.3 Herl then discusses
subsequent early Lutheran liturgical formularies, such as those found
in the Saxon Agenda. While he points out how little congregational
song the Agenda actually prescribed, he does not seem to view
this document (and others like it) as interesting fusions of various
elements of Luthers Latin and German Masses, which they seem to
have been.5 For example,
the Agenda stipulates the following order for the Sunday (communion)
service in city churches:6

Introit (Latin)

Kyrie (Greek)

Gloria (Latin)

Collect (either German or
Latin)

Epistle (German)

Sequence (Latin), German
psalm, or another sacred song

Gospel (German)

Creed (sung first in Latin
by the choir, and then in German, presumably by the people)

Sermon (presumably in German)

Communion service:
Option 1 (non-feast days):

Paraphrase of the Lords
Prayer and Admonition [on the] Sacrament (read by the priest in German)

Words of Institution (sung
by the priest in German)

Distribution, during which
the hymn Jesus Christus unser Heiland or Gott sei gelobet
is sung by the people

Communion service:
Option 2 (primarily on feast days):

Latin Preface

Latin Sanctus

Lords Prayer and Words
of Institution (German)

Distribution: Latin Agnus
Dei (sung by the choir) together with the German hymn Jesus Christus
unser Heiland (presumably sung by the congregation); one
may also sing Ps. 111, Ich dancke dem Herrn von gantzem hertzen,
as it is also in the little German songbook.

Collect and Benediction
(German)

Here we see the mixture
of Latin and German, and the dual presentation of some liturgical elements,
that remained defining features of liturgies in Saxony and elsewhere
for the next 200 years.The Agenda also provides orders
of worship for towns and cities without Latin schools.7 These services are entirely
in German, and indicate that das volck was to sing the various
psalms and hymns incorporated into the liturgies.8

3.
Catholic Liturgy—Lutheran Liturgy

3.1 In Chapter 2, entitled
Catholic Liturgy—Lutheran Liturgy, Herl seeks to determine
the congregations musical role in German churches in the years
before the Reformation. This is admittedly a difficult task, as much
work remains to be done on the pre-Reformation liturgy in German-speaking
lands.9
Some of the musico-liturgical practices seen in early Lutheran liturgies
may well predate the Reformation, but the state of research renders
this difficult to ascertain. Here Herl advances the thesis that in
liturgical matters, and especially in hymn singing, Lutherans were not
nearly so innovative as is often supposed (23). He also calls
upon the work of Fr. Anthony Ruff, OSB, who has written quite extensively
on the history of congregational singing in the pre-Reformation church
in German-speaking regions. Ruffs work reveals the extent to which
some of these congregations sang during the liturgy, and just what they
sang. Herl rightly concludes that congregational hymn singing in the
vernacular was not an innovation of Luther, as is often assumed—Ruff
has demonstrated its use in some areas centuries before the Reformation.
One of the most common uses was the practice of interpolating a vernacular
hymn (sung by the people) between the verses of the Latin sequence (sung
by the choir); this had begun by at least the twelfth century.10 Thus, as Herl says, Lutherans retained
what was to them an ancient tradition in singing these sequences with
their interpolations on the appropriate days (28). Herl also discusses
Luthers changes to the Mass and Office, and provides helpful tables
comparing the elements of the medieval Catholic Mass with Luthers
Latin and German Masses. As he points out, Luthers German Mass,
even with its deviations from the Roman Mass, seems less novel when
viewed in light of the use of German Mass elements and songs prior to
the Reformation. His discussion of Luthers changes to the Office
(matins and vespers), however, tends to minimize what were significant
changes in liturgical structure.

4.
The Church Orders

4.1 In Chapter 3, The
Church Orders: An Introduction, Herl provides an overview of the
church orders, which stand as seminal documents in the history of Lutheran
liturgical praxis. After the Reformation, a new system of church governance
was required in Lutheran lands, as Lutherans had rejected the authority
of the pope. In general, the sovereigns of the various German states
and principalities assumed the role of head of the church in their own
territories. In this role, each promulgated a church order, as did the
local governments of many cities and towns. These prescriptive documents,
which proliferated after the Reformation, represent attempts to govern
all aspects of church life, including worship and liturgy, and as such
include liturgical formularies for use in the respective territory,
city, town, or court. Herl provides helpful definitions of relevant
terms found in these documents, and in Appendix 4, provides in tabular
form the liturgical structure and content of the morning service, or
Hauptgottesdienst, as reported in 172 church orders dated between
1523 and 1747. He also discusses some of the more interesting ancillary
information about worship that appears in these documents, such as the
location of the choir, the use of the organ, attendance at services,
the length of services, and demeanor at services. Some of Herls
categorical statements here on musical practice, however, would seem
to be contradicted by contemporary evidence. For example, he states
that both the chorus musicus and the larger group sang
exclusively choraliter, that is, unison chant, in most places
during the first half of the sixteenth century (44). This view
fails to take into account the widespread dissemination of Johann Walters
Geystliche gesangk Buchleyn, a collection of polyphonic chorale
settings that was first issued in 1525, as well as the many publications
of liturgical polyphony and motets issued by Georg Rhau between 1538
and 1548—including the re-publication of Walters polyphonic
chorale book because of its continuing usefulness.11
Some church orders also document figural singing before 1550; for example,
the 1538 church order for St. Wenzelskirche in Naumburg indicates that
figural music was sung on high feast days, and that on these days the
Gloria could be sung polyphonically, and a motet could be sung after
the Epistle.12

5.
Choral and Congregational Singing in the Church Orders

5.1 Herl next moves to an
analysis of the information regarding the musical roles of the choir
and congregation that can be gleaned from the church orders.13
Here he determines the percentages of choral vis-à-vis
congregational singing in the church orders between 1523 and 1600 (why
he stops at 1600 is not clear), and determines whether each of the various
elements of the Ordinary and Proper was sung by the choir, the congregation,
or both. The church orders indicate that some liturgical elements, such
as the Introit and Kyrie, were more often specified to be sung by the
choir, while the Gloria was frequently sung in German, by the people
(often following the Latin Gloria of the choir). One of the many items
of interest found in these documents is the Lutheran retention of many
sequences after the Council of Trent had banned all but four. As mentioned
above, these sequences were often sung in alternation with German hymns.
Fully three-quarters of the time, the church orders specify that the
Creed was to be sung by the people in its German hymn version, Wir
glauben all an einen Gott; here also a two-fold performance (Latin
followed by German) was common. Herl also describes the so-called pulpit
service (Kanzeldienst), which incorporated the sermon proper
as well as the Lords Prayer, the re-reading of the Gospel, and
several congregational hymns (sung before and after the sermon). According
to the church orders, the Sanctus was often omitted, but if included,
it was usually sung by the choir. Only a few church orders stipulated
that the congregation should sing the Sanctus in German; if so, the
usual choice was Luthers Jesaia dem Propheten, das geschah.
Neither did the Agnus Dei find a fixed place in Lutheran church orders;
it was sung more often than the Sanctus, however, either before, during,
or after communion. Here the most popular German form was Deciuss
O Lamm Gottes unschuldig. Just as Luther had suggested in
1523, a great many church orders stipulated the singing of hymns by
the congregation during the distribution of communion, and often included
a short list of hymns appropriate to this part of the service; Luthers
reworking of Jesus Christus unser Heiland remained the most
popular. The church orders also reveal that not until after 1680 was
a hymn often sung following the dismissal. Herl also discusses the form
and use of matins and vespers, the two canonical hours retained by Lutherans
in public services, and the German substitutions made in these services.
From the church orders he was also able to develop a list of the
most popular German hymns—popularity being determined by
the number of church orders in which the hymn appears. Most frequently
encountered was the German creed (the Glaube), the hymn that
Luther himself stipulated that the congregation should sing. Herl also
points out that in addition to prescribing the elements of the liturgies
as well as their mode of performance, some of these church orders also
reveal details about the quality of congregational singing.
While the congregation was expected to sing at various points in the
liturgy, it seems that at first, their participation often remained
less than enthusiastic. As a result, various church orders included
exhortations to the people to sing.

6.
Ecclesiastical Visitations

6.1 In Chapter 5, Ecclesiastical
Visitations, Herl discusses the records of ecclesiastical visitations
and what these can reveal about congregational singing. After the Reformation,
Lutheran sovereigns and consistories (church courts) ordered periodic
visitations to all of the towns in a particular area by
a committee of clergy, who set the agenda for the information that should
be sought during the visit. In the visitation records for Saxony, for
example, the questions included whether the people sang along
with the choir on the hymns, following the clerk or choir, and whether
the pastor allowed the people to sing (71). While answers for
each question are not recorded for every church, many people were interviewed,
and the reports preserve an abundance of information relevant to Herls
research.

6.2 As Herl is trying to
compare singing in various regions across Germany, he turns to secondary
studies of visitation records for his source material. While it is somewhat
regrettable that he did not examine the actual visitation reports themselves,
it is certainly understandable, for even to describe the number of such
records in German archives as voluminous would be a gross
under One could spend years examining those for Saxony alone.
The use of secondary sources renders the task manageable, but the availability
and content of these sources also determines and somewhat limits Herls
geographic coverage, which includes parts of the states of electoral
Saxony (the northern region, around Wittenberg) and Hesse, as well as
Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, Calenberg-Göttingen, the area around
Nuremberg, Guttenberg, the area of Henneberg in Thuringia, and Grubenhagen.
Most of the information reported derives from reports from sixteenth-century
visitations, but some seventeenth-century reports are also included.
Even though the geographic coverage is a bit spotty (northern Germany
is not represented at all, for example, nor are the areas around Leipzig,
Dresden, Pirna, Freiberg, Chemnitz, Zwickau, and other towns), the records
examined by Herl demonstrate that congregational singing took hold very
slowly over the course of the sixteenth century, particularly in smaller
towns, but also in some of those larger towns with Latin schools (and
thus choirs). Herl derives the preponderance of the information that
he presents from the volumes published by Karl Pallas, Die Registraturen
der Kirchenvisitationen im ehemals sächsischen Kurkreise.14 He organizes the information
from these Saxon records by decade, which reveals that information on
singing increases over the course of the century. These reports overwhelmingly
support Herls central conclusion that congregational singing
was poor to nonexistent in a number of places, and so it was not an
unqualified success even seventy-five to a hundred years after the Reformation
was introduced (75). Herl has been criticized by Christopher Brown
for using these visitation records uncritically and for
not considering what might be particular biases on the part of the reviewers
or the reporters.15 Such criticism seems
utterly groundless—the sheer amount of specific material that
he presents itself argues for the legitimacy and validity of the sources:
there is just too much indication here that congregational singing had
a faltering start to attribute this to a particular slant
on the part of the original visitors.

7.
Congregational Hymnals

7.1 The visitation reports
published in these secondary sources, however, lack information from
cities, virtually all of which had one or more Latin schools with choirs.
Thus it remains difficult both to determine whether congregations sang
better in cities with choirs and to evaluate the choirs role in
the cultivation of congregational singing. Herl acknowledges this problem,
however, and identifies its cause in the tendency of cities to resist
visitations. Thus in Chapter 6, Congregational Hymnals,
in order to compensate for the lack of published visitation reports
from urban areas, Herl turns to an examination of the use of hymnals
as a means of studying congregational singing in cities. Here he asks,
to what extent were hymnals used by congregations (as opposed
to choir and clergy) in the sixteenth century? (87). He presumes
that if the people had hymn texts in front of them, then there
was less need of a choir or clerk to help them sing the right words,
and congregations could assert themselves more readily in the liturgy
(87). But this presumption rests on rather shaky ground; today, for
example, many modern congregations (particularly post-Vatican II Catholic
congregations) do have the words (and the music) available to them,
but still either do not sing much at all or do not sing well—clearly
the availability of the text does not in itself foster good singing.
The presence of a choir and clerk must also have been important, but
not essential: quite a few Catholic congregations today still sing poorly
if at all, despite the availability of a hymnal or worship folder that
provides all of the texts and music sung by the congregation, and strong
leadership by the cantor, choir and organ. At the same time, many Protestant
congregations continue to sing well and enthusiastically—even
those with no cantor, a weak choir, and a poor organist. Surely confident
singing depends on more than just the presence of the book in the hand.
Curiously, however, Herl never asks the question that would seem central
to his investigation: what are the ingredients or conditions necessary
to encourage people to sing?

7.2 Herl points out that many scholars have assumed that German Lutheran
congregations used hymnals soon after the Reformation. He questions
this assumption, however, and investigates the actual beginnings of
hymnal use. As he demonstrates, these are complicated questions, as
practices varied in different parts of Germany. Herls coverage
and discussion of the growth of hymn-writing and the publication of
hymnals is excellent, and includes an impressive collation of hymnals
and a discussion of the relationships between them. He looks at the
evidence city by city, and also includes hymnals not covered in Das
deutsche Kirchenlied (DKL).16
For purposes of comparison, he includes Catholic and Calvinist hymnals
in his discussion, and demonstrates that while Lutherans were not alone
in using hymnals, they did publish the overwhelming number of hymnals.
Herl concludes, however, that most of these sixteenth-century hymnals
were not used by congregations, but by choirs. He feels that although
individuals may have purchased hymnals and taken them to church, there
is no indication that they could use them there. He even puzzles over
why a number of them were published at all, and doubts the veracity
of most of the title pages that state that the hymnal in question was
designed for singing in church. He provides little documentation to
justify his doubt, however; instead, he relies chiefly upon whether
or not congregational singing is mentioned in the particular hymnals
preface. For example, the preface to Das teutsch Gesang (Nuremberg,
1525–8) exhorted parents to teach hymns to children so they could
sing them with the entire congregation as they attended church; that
of the Gantz newe geystliche teütsche Hymnus (Nuremberg,
1527) indicates that it was for singing in the church or otherwise.
Yet Herl says there is no evidence that the latter hymnal was actually
used in churches in Nuremberg or was even intended for use by the congregation.
One is left wondering just what he finds so problematic about this and
similar contemporary evidence, and why he rejects it so readily. Some
contemporary evidence would appear to be quite reliable; in its Sunday
morning liturgy for churches in cities with Latin schools, for example,
the Saxon Agenda refers to the singing of the hymns Jesus
Christus unser Heiland and Ich danke dem Herrn von ganzem
Herzen (Ps. 111) during the Distribution, and indicates that the
latter is also in the little German songbook.17
These hymns were probably sung by the people, although the Agenda
is not specific on this point. This represents a rather early reference
to the use of a hymnal in church; the rubric itself quite likely refers
to the hymnal first published in 1529 in Wittenberg by Joseph Klug,
Geistliche Lieder auffs new gebessert zu Wittemberg; in the 1533
edition of the hymnal, the hymn Jesus Christus unser Heiland
appears on folios 27v–29r (two melodies are
provided), and Ich danke dem Herrn appears on folios 30v–34r,
with the header Der cxj Psalm, zusingen wenn man das Sacrament
empfehet (the 111th Psalm, to sing when one receives the
Sacrament). The hymn does not appear in Walters polyphonic
collection of 1525.

8.
Choral Music versus Congregational Singing

8.1 The title of the next
chapter, Choral Music versus Congregational Singing, foregrounds
an issue that Herl has referenced numerous times in the previous chapters:
the conflict (as he sees it) between the choir and congregation
that resulted from the growth of congregational singing. Here Herl advances
the argument that once the congregation did begin to sing well, it began
to resent the choirs role in the liturgy, and began to agitate
for its own liturgical place. It must be stated from the outset that
the evidence for this position is slim at best. Virtually all of the
quotations that Herl presents on this topic (and many others that he
has not included), while demonstrating a growing concern for the cultivation
of congregational singing and its inclusion in the liturgy, speak of
a desire for the song of the people to exist alongside or
together with the figural music of the choir.18 Herl, however,
interprets this expressed desire for congregational song as a worship
war, and from these quotations (and other material presented later)
concludes that the congregation began to assert itself or
claim its own place in the liturgy. As he puts it, by the second
quarter of the seventeenth century the laity had become accustomed to
singing in church and began to oppose the encroachment of figural music
on their territory (117). But just what constituted the laitys
territory in the liturgy remains undefined here, and the
basis for the idea that the congregation suddenly felt that it owned
particular pieces of liturgical property is wanting.

8.2 Herl first discusses
the sixteenth-century debates and controversies between Lutherans and
Calvinists (adherents of the Reformed tradition), in which the Lutherans
consistently defended the place of figural and instrumental music in
the liturgy, while the Calvinists generally opposed it. After discussing
the views of various early reformers (Karlstadt, Calvin, Zwingli) and
debates between Calvinists and Lutherans on the subject of the place
of instrumental and polyphonic music in the liturgy (e.g., Andreae
and Beza, the Anhalt Controversy), Herl concludes that polyphonic
choral music, which might otherwise have played a lesser role, was emphasized
by Lutherans once Reformed theologians had found it unacceptable
(110). But Lutherans had included polyphonic vocal music in liturgies
from the first decades of history of the church; the many publications
of sacred polyphony issued by Georg Rhau in the 1530s and 1540s, for
example, demonstrate the support of and demand for figural music on
the part of early Lutherans. Nothing in the Lutheran defenses of figural
(and instrumental) music in the face of Calvinist attacks on both suggests
that Lutherans opted to champion the use of figural music in their worship
services as a response to the opposition to it expressed by those of
the Reformed tradition.19

8.3 In his effort to explain
the Lutheran use of figural music as a response to the Calvinist position,
Herl also points to the 1616 Caeremoniae Lutheranae of Philipp
Arnoldi, a Lutheran supporter of polyphonic and instrumental music,
and quotes the following passage:

Before as well as after
the sermon is delivered, and of course during the administration of
the Holy Supper, it is praiseworthy not only to sing psalms and Christian
songs, either chanted or performed figurally in 4, 5, 6, 8, 12 and more
voices; but also to play the organ and glorify God the Lord with other
edifying string music. (110)

According to Herl, in
the sixteenth century, the songs before and after the sermon and during
the communion had typically belonged to the congregation (110).
Thus he concludes that here an influential writer was giving his
unqualified blessing to the choral performance of these songs, removing
from the service what little the congregation had hitherto been accustomed
to singing. This would have been unnecessary if not for the Reformed
threat (110). But in Lutheran liturgical parlance, the phrase
before and after the sermon is commonly used to refer to
two different pairs of liturgical junctures. The first of these occurred
within the pulpit service itself, and followed the sermons praeloquium
(or introduction) as well as its main body.20 Hymns were commonly sung at these two points. The second
set of junctures, however, occurred outside the pulpit service entirely:
after the reading of the Gospel (before the Creed and pulpit service
with sermon) and then after the entire pulpit service, which concluded
with prayers. Already in the late sixteenth century, these two latter
positions were often occupied by polyphonic music, and the designations
vor der Predigt / nach der Predigt (before the sermon
/ after the sermon) seen in church orders frequently refer to
these two moments in the liturgy. One sees these same rubrics in some
of Bachs two-part cantatas. Thus here, rather than advocating
the appropriation of congregational space by the choir, Arnoldi is more
likely describing the figural music performed after the Gospel (and
hence before the sermon) and at the conclusion of the entire pulpit
service; in all likelihood, the congregation still sang the two hymns
during the pulpit service. The entire structure (Gospel—figural
music—Creed—sermon with hymns and annexes—figural
music) was typical in many Lutheran churches, and is laid out in detail
in an order of worship from the Dresden court in 1650 (the excerpt begins
after the recitation of the Epistle and singing of the Gradual hymn):

Afterwards, Psalm 68 was
read in place of the Gospel, and then Psalm 136 was performed with voices
and instruments, with the corps of trumpeters, after which the Creed
was sung with the congregation.21 Afterwards
the sermon was preached by Senior Court Preacher Dr. Jacob Weller, before
which, and before the Lords Prayer, Nun lob, mein Seel,
den Herren was sung; the [sermon] text was drawn from the 3rd
chapter of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, verses 22–4. After the
sermon and the confession, the appointed announcement and prayer were
read, and before the Lords Prayer, Es wolt uns Gott gnädig
sein was sung.22 After the
sermon, a tenor sang the following words from Psalm 66 in recitative:
[vv. 8–14 follow]. After this followed the Te Deum laudamus
with the entire musical ensemble, trumpeters, and timpanists. After
this, the appointed Collect and Blessing were spoken, and to close,
Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort was sung.23

8.4 Herl expresses the view
that choral polyphony was heard in only a few German churches before
about 1550. This would seem to be an underestimation of the importance
of polyphony in the first three decades of the churchs history.
It is true, however, that one sees a real growth in the inclusion of
polyphony in German Lutheran churches after ca.1550, a growth that is
reflected in the dramatic increase in the number of publications of
polyphony by and for Lutherans. As the century progressed toward its
close, those in churches with choirs typically heard polyphonic presentations
of the Introit, various mass movements, various salutations and versicles,
and motets in German and Latin; the latter could be sung at several
points during the liturgy, including communion, where they often preceded
the congregational hymns. Choirs were gradually directed to sing figural
music on a particular schedule; some churches alternated weekly between
music sung choraliter and that sung figuraliter; others
established different alternation patterns. Over time, the polyphonic
(as opposed to monophonic) presentation of the liturgy by the choir
became the norm in many churches, particularly those associated with
Latin schools. According to Herl, the rise of polyphony created a new
competition between the choir and congregation for space in the liturgy,
and contributed to the so-called worship wars announced
in the books title. It is true that the growth of polyphonic performance
expanded the choirs role, as extra-liturgical pieces such as motets
were interpolated at various liturgical junctures, such as after the
Gospel, the sermon, and during communion. But the congregations
role expanded as well, with hymns sung after the Greek/Latin Kyrie and
Gloria, after the Epistle (in place of the Gradual), during the pulpit
service, during communion, and at the end of the service. Given the
limited role assigned to the congregation in Luthers own liturgies
and the early church orders, it would seem more accurate to characterize
the musical developments after 1517 as a two-fold musical expansion
of the liturgy that involved both the choir and the congregation, rather
than as the exclusion of the congregation by choral polyphony.

8.5 Having identified this
new competition, Herl then explains the introduction of the cantional
style—straightforward four-part harmonizations of hymns and psalm
settings—as a compromise that allowed congregational monophony
and choral polyphony to coexist, as congregations could and did sing
along on the melody line of these settings. It seems far more likely,
however, that the cantional style developed in direct response to the
increased desire for polyphony in the sixteenth century, and provided
a way for the choir to sing hymns in parts rather than monophonically,
while allowing the congregation to sing as well. Herl continues his
discussion of unified choral and congregational song with a look at
Michael Praetoriuss preface to his collection Urania (1615),
in which the composer explains how the choir and congregation might
be combined in various of the chorale-based works in that collection.
Here Praetorius provides important information on performance practices
of the time. But omitted from Herls discussion is any consideration
of Praetoriuss important discussions of the liturgical placement
of figural music for the choir alone.24
As a result, his treatment suggests that Praetorius advocated that the
choir should only sing together with the congregation, when in fact
the composer-theorist describes several different important facets of
musical practice, not all of which involve the congregation.

8.6 Herl next turns his
attention to the new Italian style that appeared around
1600, and describes its introduction into Lutheran sacred repertories,
first by Praetorius, and then by that famous trio in Saxony—Schütz,
Schein, and Scheidt. (Never acknowledged here, however, is the continued
widespread performance by Lutherans of music by Catholic composers,
particularly Italians.) One of the new styles most prominent characteristics,
of course, was the tossing back and forth of brief motives in both chorale-based
and free compositions. According to Herl, with the introduction of this
style the division between the music of the choir and that of
the people thereby deepened; this is in marked contrast to the cantional
style, which had attempted to combine the two (117). Such an assertion
ignores the Spruchmotetten and Latin-texted motets that had coexisted
in liturgies for decades with music in the cantional style. Herl leaves
the reader with the impression that before the new Italian style
appeared, the choir sang only hymns in cantional style together with
the congregation, and thus he pits the cantional style against the new
Italian style as polar opposites, as if nothing existed in the
musical breach. This is simply inaccurate.

8.7 There is no doubt, however,
that the introduction of the Italian concertato style into Lutheran
church music had its fierce opponents, none more vehement than the Rostock
theologian Theophilus Großgebauer (1627–61).25 In his influential reform
tract of 1661, Wächterstimme aus dem verwüsteten Zion,
Großgebauer called attention to the concerto style,
in which texts were torn apart and chopped into little pieces
through quick runs in the throat (118). Großgebauer clearly
disapproved of Italian musical style, and also its purveyors—his
attacks on church musicians are rather virulent. But he does not, as
Herl suggests, pit choir against congregation; nor does he advocate
the outright banishment of figural music from the liturgy, although
one could read his comments in that light.26 Like his theological colleagues in Rostock,
Großgebauer sought to reform the church from within, and felt
strongly that congregational singing should play an important role in
the revitalization of the institution.27 Neither Großgebauer
nor the other critics cited by Herl questioned the place of figural
music in the liturgy—it had been well established back in the
sixteenth century. Instead, their chief aim was to change or reform
the style of the figural and organ music employed during liturgies.
And despite the criticisms of Großgebauer and others, the Italian
style did not disappear, and those works in which it was primarily heard—sacred
concertos—led ultimately to the madrigalian cantata. Thus one
is left to wonder just what impact Großgebauer, Gerber, and other
critics had on Lutheran musico-liturgical praxis.

8.8 In the end, the implications
of this chapter are puzzling: if both Lutheran theologians and lay people
came widely to oppose the inclusion of figural music in the liturgy,
how and why did it continue to maintain such a strong presence there?
Given the inclination of Lutherans to dispense with those things they
deemed ritually suspect or theologically unsound, it would seem that
if figural music had really been viewed as an impediment to meaningful
worship, its role in the liturgy would have been diminished or suppressed
entirely. But instead, it continued to flourish there, and its use created
a great demand for new material: between ca.1550 and ca.1700, Lutheran
presses continuously poured forth myriad publications of sacred music—mass
settings, motets, and sacred concertos—for vocal ensembles to
sing in church, and many city churches (particularly those with Latin
schools, such as those in Dresden, Leipzig, Lübeck, Lüneburg
and Breslau, to name but a few) amassed extensive collections of German
and Italian figural music. And the inclusion—alongside congregational
hymnody—of polyphonic Introit motets, salutations, mass movements,
motets, sacred concertos, and/or cantatas in liturgies continued well
into the eighteenth century. In Herls view, however, these facts
can only mean that Lutherans were forced to continue to live under a
loathed polyphonic regime. Somehow he cannot come to terms with what
was normative in Lutheran liturgical practice of the sixteenth, seventeenth,
and early eighteenth centuries: services in which both choral polyphony
(or soloistic figural music) and congregational singing played important
roles. Nor can he see this shared responsibility as a valid consequence
of Luthers reforms. Ultimately, he seems unable to see the active
cultivation and coexistence of both figural music and congregational
singing as a triumph of the Lutheran church in this era, something in
which many contemporary Lutherans took great pride.

9.
The Organ and Hymn Singing

9.1 In Chapter 8, The
Organ and Hymn Singing, Herl traces the changes in the organs
function during worship from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth.28
In the early days of the Lutheran church, organists (in churches that
had organs) were primarily responsible for providing the pitch for the
choir with preludes and other introductions, and for substituting for
the choir in alternatim performances and in the performance of
motet intabulations. After 1600, organists were increasingly called
upon to play continuo during the performance of figural music; gradually,
the responsibility for accompanying congregational hymns was also added
to their duties. Herl traces the introduction of organ accompaniment
for hymns, the purpose of which was to keep the singing congregation
together and on pitch, and demonstrates that the practice caught on
slowly between 1650 and 1750 or later. He also discusses the ways in
which organists harmonized hymns, and here points to cantionals and
chorale books as resources for the organist. Traditionally, cantionals
included hymns in four parts (set out in choirbook format), and after
ca.1600 included a continuo part, while the chorale book included just
the hymn melody and a continuo part (in score format), although a few
of these also included the lower parts. It is not entirely clear, however,
why Herl makes such a careful distinction between cantionals, such as
those of Schein and Scheidt, and chorale books, which appeared later,
in the history of hymn accompaniments for congregational singing. He
states that the latter were specifically intended as [accompaniment
books] for organists, and adds that the first of these, published
for Reformed churches, appeared in 1665, while the earliest chorale
book for Lutheran use was published in 1690 (137). Given the longstanding
tradition of congregations singing the melody along with choral polyphony
in the cantional style, however, it would seem that cantionals with
continuo parts represented the first books of hymn accompaniments, and
that the chorale books represented an extension of the practice begun
with these earlier publications.29
Either type of book could be used with the congregation.30 As time went on, these chorale
books began to include interludes—improvisational flourishes played
between the phrases of the chorale. Herl includes a very informative
discussion of the development of interludes and their purpose, as well
as contemporary reaction to them. He also discusses the art of improvised
preluding as treated by various eighteenth-century authors. The discussion
would not be complete, however, without some examination of the
abuse of the organ as seen by contemporary commentators. Herl
chronicles some of the complaints voiced at the time, such as excessive
volume, extensive preludes, and over-ornamentation of hymn melodies.

10.
Performance Practice

10.1 In chapter 9 on Performance
Practice Herl deals with the various aspects of the repertory
of Lutheran hymns and their performance. One of the curiosities that
he addresses is the fact that although hundreds of hymns were composed
and published during the period in question, the repertory of those
sung in church by the congregation seems to have remained quite small,
and centered on those of the Reformation era. Herl attributes this in
part to the fact that before hymnal use became widespread, congregations
sang hymns from memory, which limited the size of the repertory. He
points out that the 1545 hymnal of Valentin Bapst, which was reissued
numerous times, provided the central hymn repertory for the Lutheran
church during this entire period, and states that for nearly two
hundred years Lutherans sang little else (156). Accompanying this
literal explosion in hymn writing in the seventeenth century were frequent
prohibitions on the introduction of new hymns into the liturgy, even
into the early eighteenth century. Yet even though the repertory remained
quite limited, the quality of singing seems to have varied widely from
very good to very poor; a report from Bautzen (in Saxony) in 1637, for
example, referred to a great dissonance that arose when
the congregation sang. Herl also looked into the question of hymn tempos,
particularly since it is commonly believed that the chorales were sung
very slowly during this era. Herl points out, however, that while information
on hymn tempi is wanting for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
a number of eighteenth-century authors complained that the hymns were
sung too quickly. Among the more colorful comments is this one from
a Bitterfeld hymnal of 1734: In addition, the spiritual songs
must not be sung as if they were en route in the mail [i. e.,
quickly]; but rather the slower they are sung, the more edifying and
enlivening they are (169). To his discussion of the slowing of
hymn tempi Herl relates the straightening out of hymn rhythms
seen over the course of the seventeenth century; by this he means the
recasting of the earlier rhythmic versions with their frequent syncopations
into square, isometric versions. Finally, it would seem
that hymns also suffered some abuse during this era. In 1726, the author
Christian Marbach cautioned that the devil attempted to neutralize the
salutary effects of hymns in various ways, such as when foolish
stories concerning hymns are told so that people can no longer sing
them without laughing, or when people provoke laughter by
their choice of hymns at funerals, such as when the hymn Einen
guten Kampff hab ich auf der Welt gekämpffet (I Have
Fought a Good Fight in this World) is chosen for someone whose only
battle on earth was a constant one with his neighbors (173–4).
Evidently games such as those played by many junior choir members during
the sermon, in which a tag line is added to various hymn titles (with
frequent hilarious results), have a very long history.

11.
Herls Appendices

11.1 One of the major strengths
of Herls study is his inclusion in Appendix 4 of orders of worship
found in church orders dating from the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
centuries. There are over 170 liturgical orders here, presented in comparative
tables. These liturgical collations alone represent hundreds of hours
of work with primary sources (both locating them and culling the information
from them), and they are collected nowhere else. The bibliography of
these church orders alone represents a treasure-trove of information
for scholars of early Lutheran liturgies. And in the tables, one can
study not only the liturgical forms used in various places around Germany
and their development over time, but can also trace the use of those
liturgical elements, such as the sequence and the Elevation, that tended
to disappear from Lutheran liturgies. One can also see the placement
and number of hymns included. But curiously, the information provided
by these church orders plays a somewhat minor role in Herls discussions.
In his discussion of the visitation reports, for example, Herl does
not compare information gleaned from the reports with the church orders
for the towns visited to see how (or if) they correspond. In this respect
there is a gap in the study, as these two great bodies of information—one
prescriptive, the other descriptive—are never brought together.
These liturgies, however, do not bear out Herls thesis that the
congregation gradually took ownership of the liturgy (179).
In Appendix 4, he indicates with a symbol to the left or right of the
language indicator whether the liturgical element was sung by the choir
or the congregation. The majority of elements, however, have no designation
at all. And finally, in his notes to Appendix 4, Herl indicates that
he has omitted most references to extra-liturgical sacred art music
(including salutations) and organ music found in the sources. These
omissions significantly alter the readers perception of the musical
nature of the liturgy and the role of the choir, and would seem to constitute
essential material for inclusion.

12.
Conclusion

12.1 The hallmark
of Lutheran liturgical development from the sixteenth to the eighteenth
centuries was the change from a liturgy that was essentially choral
to one that was essentially congregational (175). With this statement
Herl opens the conclusion to his study. But this statement is questionable
in several respects. First, it presumes that the rise of congregational
singing concomitantly meant the near-complete elimination of the choirs
role in the liturgy, something that the historical sources do not suggest
happened until the later eighteenth century, under the influence of
Rationalism. In order to make this claim, Herl must regard the elaborate
musico-liturgical practices seen in early seventeenth-century Wolfenbüttel
during the time of Praetorius, and a century later in Leipzig at the
time of Kuhnau and Bach, as atypical examples in which churches rose
to the occasion and develop[ed] a liturgy in which both choral
and congregational music flourished, each enhancing the other
(177). But much documentation survives to suggest that these practices
represented the widespread norm between ca.1570 and ca.1750, particularly
in town and city churches and in court chapels (most of which are excluded
from the discussion). Second, his tabular presentations of actual orders
of worship (in Appendices 3 and 4) do not support this assertion—there
are simply too few liturgies from the eighteenth century represented
there to make this argument. And third, many (including this reviewer)
would contend that it is the flowering of sacred art music—both
liturgical and extra-liturgical—and its continued presence in
the liturgy, together with congregational song, that represents the
true hallmark of Lutheran liturgy during this era.

12.2 In this study Joseph
Herl has brought to light much new and valuable information regarding
the role of music, particularly that of the congregation, in the liturgies
of the Lutheran church during the first two and a half centuries of
its existence. Many will find much that is very useful here, particularly
the discussions of new liturgical forms, the growth of hymnals and their
content, the development of organ accompaniment of hymns and other performance
practices, the collection of liturgies in the appendices, as well as
many other things. Herls new and critical look at these developments
is refreshing, and his conclusions are largely on the mark (with the
exceptions noted above). But his strongest contribution may well be
his demonstration that congregational singing among Lutherans took root
slowly, over a century or more, and that a singing congregation was
not the norm from the Reformation on, as earlier scholars had asserted
(and as is still widely believed by many scholars and lay Lutherans).
Clearly Hans and Grethe were not singing Ein feste Burg
with enthusiasm from the earliest years of the Reformation, but instead,
had to be exhorted, cajoled, and otherwise encouraged for decades before
they could be convinced to raise their voices in sacred song.

References

*
Mary E. Frandsen (frandsen.3@nd.edu)
is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Notre Dame
and studies sacred music, liturgical practices, and devotion in
northern Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Her
monograph, Crossing Confessional Boundaries: The Patronage of
Italian Sacred Music in Seventeenth-Century Dresden, was published
by Oxford University Press in 2006.

2 The participation of the schoolboys (die Schuler)
is indicated in the opening rubrics for the matins, vespers, and
Sunday communion services (Agenda, fol. 22r–v).

3 In todays Lutheran churches, the congregation
generally sings four of the five elements of the Ordinary (the Credo
is usually spoken), the items of the Proper that remain in use,
and all of the hymns, together with the choir (if one is present);
the latter often performs only one composition alone at some point
during the liturgy. Just as in the era under discussion, however,
todays practices vary widely from church to church.

4 Leavers views are expressed in Lutheran
Vespers as a Context for Music, in Church, Stage, and Studio:
Music and its Contexts in Seventeenth-Century Germany, ed. Paul
Walker (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1990), 143–61, esp.
145.

8 At Saturday vespers, these included the psalms (or
hymns); during the Sunday communion service, these included the
opening hymn as the Introit, the hymn after the Epistle, the creedal
hymn, and hymns (including the German Sanctus) during the distribution
of communion. At Sunday vespers, the congregation was to sing one
or two psalms in either German or Latin, and the German Magnificat.

9 The situation is not quite as bleak as Herl indicates,
however; two important sources in this area are not cited in his
bibliography: Kathryn Ann Pohlmann Duffy, The Jena Choirbooks:
the Music and the Liturgy of Pre-Reformation Saxony (Ph.D.
diss., University of Chicago, 1994), and Jürgen Heidrich, Die
deutschen Chorbücher aus der Hofkapelle Friedrichs des Weisen:
ein Beitrag zur mitteldeutschen geistlichen Musikpraxis um 1500
(Baden-Baden: Koerner, 1993).

11 See Grove Music Online, s.v. Rhau, Georg
(by Victor Mattfeld) (accessed 26 February 2006). Walters
collection was issued six times between 1525 and 1551.

12 Emil Sehling, Die Evangelischen Kirchenordnungen
des XVI. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig: Reisland, 1904; reprint, Aalen:
Scientia Verlag, 1970) 2:71. Craig Westendorf lists Spruchmotetten
by Stoltzer, Rab, Reusch, and others that were composed (and in
some cases published) by and for Lutherans between 1525 and 1550,
and such works were likely used in liturgies (in these early decades
there is no clear evidence either way); The Textual and Musical
Repertoire of the Spruchmotette (DMA diss., University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1987), 762–3.

13 Herl focuses his study on liturgies celebrated in
public churches, and apparently for this reason excludes court chapels;
thus the rich liturgical histories of Dresden, Liegnitz (now Legnica),
Weissenfels, and other courts are not considered.

15 Christopher Brown, Singing the Gospel: Lutheran
Hymns and the Success of the Reformation in Joachimsthal (PhD
diss., Harvard University, 2001), 16. Herl discusses Browns
criticisms on pp. 85–6. Brown's study has since appeared as Singing the Gospel: Lutheran Hymns and the Success of the Reformation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005.

19 See Joyce L. Irwin, Neither Voice nor Heart Alone:
German Lutheran Theology of Music in the Age of the Baroque
(New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 11–42.

20 In the pulpit service, the minister
began with a praeloquium, after which a hymn was sung and
the Lords Prayer was said before the sermon continued.

21 In this service, which was held in celebration of
the departure of Swedish troops from Saxony after the Thirty Years
War, psalm texts replaced both the Epistle and the Gospel. The setting
of Ps. 136 was probably SWV 45, Schützs second setting
of this psalm from the Psalmen Davids of 1619 (as suggested
by Joshua Rifkin in The New Grove North European Baroque Masters [New
York: W.W. Norton, 1985], 47, 114).

28 With respect to the North German region, much of what Herl discusses
here is treated in far greater detail in a recent article by Siegbert
Rampe which appeared too late for inclusion in Herls study:
Abendmusik oder Gottesdienst? Zur Funktion norddeutscher Orgelkompositionen
des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, part 1, Die gottesdienstlichen
Aufgaben der Organisten, Schütz-Jahrbuch 25 (2003):
7–70.

30 Presumably the inclusion of the soprano line in the chorale books
indicated that the organist was to include it in his realization
of the continuo; Herl does not discuss the performance-practice
implications of this melody plus continuo format.